I bought this dreamcast back in 2008. I was informed it had a 'multi-region' modchip. Apparently it's fairly uncommon as it was later found to be rather useless? Anyway. Here's a photo of it. Is it the modchip, did it have some form of brand or something? I couldnt find any photos of one online either..
It's a cpld that patches the bios to be region free as it's loading. It kinda got replaced by the bios swap, but some people prefer it as it's an easier install. The code isn't public, so I dont/can't offer them for sale. But with the japanesecake bios with the vga patch, the bios swap is preferable for most these days. More infos: http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/dreamcast-4-wire-mod-chip-install/ https://dcemulation.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=90915
The original modchips were designed to shut off once the disc had booted. These ones does not, and in my experience this means it will be killing the drive in no time. Of course, I can only speak from personal experience. It could just as well be bad luck, but since the original chips turned off it seems likely it was to prevent this. I would replace it with a region free bios that BadAd sells. It's a much neater solution and guaranteed not to cause strain on the drive. Also that install looks terrible. I wouldn't leave it like that. On a side note the modchip can be reflashed to work as an RGB mod for the N64, so it doesn't have to go to waste
Curious though. Is the machine meant to reboot after a different region game is loaded? I press PLAY, and the Dreamcast bootup animation happens again, then plays as normal.
These modchips have 0 to do with the drive. On boot up it patches the bios as it loads and that's it.
Then I wonder why the first modchips switched themselves off after power on. They would stay on for a disc to load, but if you exited to the bios by pressing ABXY+Start in a game, the game disc would no longer boot. You would have to power off and on again. I've always assumed this was a safety precaution
I assume they didnt think about the bios reloading (and therefore repatching) on exiting to the bios screen.